In modern telecommunication and computer systems parallel Input/Output (I/O) communication links are increasingly replaced by serial high-speed I/O communication links. To provide high data transmission rates—in the gigabit range—using parallel communication links several hundred parallel data lines are generally required. However, extreme difficulties in controlling crosstalk and synchronizing large numbers of parallel data lines substantially limit maximum achievable data transmission rates. Furthermore, parallel high-speed communication links require: a large number of I/O connections; large routing space; and a substantially amount of power due to the multiplicity of components.
In point-to point serial high-speed I/O communication links, a plurality of parallel data lines are multiplexed using a serializer and transmitted using a single data line. At the receiving end, a de-serializer de-multiplexes the serial high speed data signal into its original parallel form. This technique significantly reduces the number of I/O connections; routing space; and amount of power consumed compared to the parallel Input/Output (I/O) communication links, as well as substantially reduces skew.
Unfortunately, there is an inherent problem associated with serial communication links which is their lowpass characteristic limiting the transmission rate. The limitation of the transmission data rate is caused by the type of material and interconnect used for signal transmission.
Commonly, low cost Flame Retardant 4 (FR4)—based materials are used to manufacture Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) and backplanes. However, frequency-dependent losses from this type of material make digital baseband transmission susceptible to Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) at data transmission rates in the multi gigabit range. For example, a stripline in a typical backplane has a length of 0.5 m or more. The insertion loss of the stripline over the total length of 0.5 m is more than 20 dB at 10 GHz. Furthermore, crosstalk is of increasing concern, due to shrinking sizes and increasing currents in modern electronic systems.
It would be highly desirable to overcome these drawbacks and to provide a method and system for high-speed bandpass serial data communication.